Little Gem: a new menu for fast-casual

Founder Eric Lilavois (left), chef Dave Cruz (middle), and CFO John DiFazio (right), show the beginnings of their new restaurant in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, June 29, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Eric Lilavois was sitting at a picnic table in the heart of Napa Valley — outside the farmhouse of winemaker Steve Matthiasson, to be exact — when he realized he had become that guy.

Lilavois had recently cut out gluten and dairy from his diet, a change from his (seemingly delightful) life of bread and pasta that immediately alleviated the mysterious headaches that had plagued him for years despite a cabinet’s worth of anti-allergy medicine.

The dietary change worked, and yet: There he was, in an idyllic Wine Country setting, wondering if he would be able to eat anything and, perhaps more importantly, worried that he was stressing his hosts.

As someone who worked in the restaurant industry — Lilavois spent more than a decade in the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, including the last seven years as its chief operating officer — he knew well the challenges that dietary restrictions — both real and imagined — can pose for restaurants and home cooks.

That was Lilavois’ lightbulb moment, and the genesis of his new restaurant, opening this fall in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

The 75-seat restaurant, named Little Gem, is taking the corner space at Grove and Gough, in the base of a freshly built luxury condo building (400 Grove St.).

Boor Bridges Architecture (Sightglass, Trou Normand) will design the light-filled, 2,000-square-foot space. But, unlike the other projects from Keller alumni, this one will not be upscale.

In fact, it will not even have table service.

Nor will it have gluten, dairy or refined sugar.

“I wanted food that was natural and delicious and inherently free of these things,” says Lilavois, whose partners in the endeavor are John DiFazio, a Wall Street veteran, and Dave Cruz, the talented chef who made his name at Keller’s Ad Hoc in Yountville.

Cruz envisions dishes like local king salmon served with sauteed spinach and fingerling potatoes; a gluten-free naan wrap full of pork shoulder, pickled carrots, cucumbers and fennel mustard; and cauliflower, slowly caramelized in avocado oil and tossed with curry powder.

“I want to produce really quality food. It’s just an aside that it doesn’t have dairy or sugar or gluten,” Cruz says.

“It’s about choices, not substitutes. If you were to sit down and eat a meal, you wouldn’t realize” what’s missing.

In recent years, the neighborhood has welcomed standouts like Monsieur Benjamin, 20th Century Cafe, Rich Table, Nojo, Souvla, Boxing Room and the entire game-changing Proxy development, all of which have supplemented the area’s signatures like Zuni, Jardiniere, Hayes Street Grill and Absinthe.

Yet, since prime-time reservations remain difficult to procure, it seems the saturation level hasn’t yet been reached. In fact, the hits will keep coming.

Later this summer, Dominique Crenn will open her Brittany-inspired restaurant, Petit Crenn, in the former Bar Jules space (609 Hayes St.). Mexico City star Gabriela Camara is building her first U.S. restaurant, Cala (149 Fell St.); and a few blocks away, Kim Alter is working on her still-unnamed project at 330 Gough St.

The wealth of options, both new and old, is one reason why Lilavois opted for casual counter service with Little Gem.

“Fine dining is covered. There’s no shortage of places to go for the highest quality produce and dining standards,” he says. “I see that the dining culture is moving: We want it accessible, both from price standpoint and in casual nature.

“It’s the way our culture seems to be headed: The healthy modern diet.”

And the name?

Well, the elevator pitch is that Little Gem lettuce — that middle ground between romaine and butter made famous by Alice Waters at Chez Panisse — offers both rich and sweet flavor profiles, without any dairy or refined sugar.

But since this is a dairy-free operation, the cheesiness factor should be minimized, so maybe the better line comes from the other half of the reference.

Says Lilavois: “Hopefully we’ll be a little gem in the neighborhood, and in the industry.”

Ryan Farr is closing his 4505 Meats Butcher Shop in the Mission.

Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle

Around the bay: Elsewhere in significant restaurant buzz around town ...

BayWolf, one of the most historically significant restaurants in Oakland, is closing at the end of August. Owner Michael Wild and partner Larry Goldman have decided to sell the building (3853 Piedmont Ave.), capping 40 years of business.

In other closure news, North Beach’s Giordano Bros. (303 Columbus Ave.) has shut down, as its owners decided to focus on the larger Mission location. The bar is famous for its Pittsburgh-style all-in-one sandwiches, consisting of thick white bread engulfing meat, slaw and French fries.

4505 Meats has a popular barbecue joint on Divisadero, but chef-owner Ryan Farr is bidding farewell to the company’s butcher shop in the Mission.

The silver lining, however, is that fellow sustainable-meat advocate Belcampo Meat is taking over the space (1909 Mission St.). The exit of 4505 Meats is set for July 26, with Belcampo scheduled to open on Aug. 1.

Paolo Lucchesi is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Inside Scoop columnist. He covers all breaking restaurant news in the Bay Area, from openings and closings to chef gossip and other food media. Before coming to The Chronicle food section, he served as the founding editor of Eater San Francisco, which launched in fall 2007, and later Eater National, which launched in fall 2009.